MsMOMA in Maine

The Boston Post Cane Passes to Emeline Torrey

2011-09-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

On September 10, the Boston Post Cane was awarded to Cherryfield’s most senior citizen, Emeline Torrey, 94 years old on September 19, 2011. The recipient of the Boston Post Cane must be the oldest registered voter in town and must have lived in Cherryfield for at least twenty years.

The 102-year-old cane “to keep for the day” and a framed certificate “to keep forever” were presented to Ms Torrey on Saturday by Kathy Upton, President of the Cherryfield-Narraguagus Historical Society, at a reception organized by the family and held at the Narraguagus Snowmobile Clubhouse near Torrey’s home. Friends, neighbors, and family members from around the state and country joined in celebrating the event that she is reported to have been “looking forward to” with great anticipation.

Ms Torrey was born in Machiasport, ME, in that “populated place” known as Starboard and began school there. When she was nine years old, her family was lured to Minnesota by a relative and job prospects. “They were both carpenters,” Emeline says, “and Uncle Frank kept at him until he went out there.” There she grew up, married Sylvester Northrop in 1937, had three children, and remained until 1949 when the family of seven – Emeline, her husband and three children, and her parents Raymond & Rosie Sprague – returned to Maine and settled in Lubec where her husband died just months later.

While the family was still in mourning, a neighbor had a baby girl, but was too sick to care for her. Emeline stepped up and welcomed the newborn into her home. “Shelley Rae Boo Northrop Sheehan Cleaves” was “a bright spot” in their lives and became the family’s fourth child. She grew up with her “adopted” family and lived with them off and on for years. “When I think of a mother, I think of Emeline, and her family as my family, her home as my home,” says Cleaves. “The house was filled with smells of everything you could imagine cooking. She is just a wonderful person. I can’t say enough good things about her. She is a fountain of energy and an amazingly hard worker.”

Emeline has always worked at something. To supplement her widow’s pension, she did housework and cobbled together a living doing whatever work was available. She would come to Cherryfield and stay with her cousin Laura Tenan while working at the Stewart’s blueberry factory in the summer. After the children were grown, she provided live-in cooking and housekeeping services to Senator and Mrs. Hollis Wyman in Milbridge for ten years, retiring from that position in 1977. Tenan also “recommended” her to Ward Torrey, who worked for the Wymans. They married in 1980 and had seven years together before his death in 1987.

In the 1980s she worked on the inspection line at Cherryfield Foods with Kathy Upton who says, “Hers were the last eyes to see the berries before they went into the can. She was like a mother to us all.” She retired from there in 1993, but she’s still working – washing and ironing linens the old-fashioned way for her friends, Frank and Ada Graham of Milbridge. When I met with her at her home, she had just put up fifty pints of green beans that she had picked from her son’s garden.

Her family has grown to include 12 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, and 6 great-great-grandchildren. Her daughter Alice Reid now lives in Florida, her son Bud lives in Lubec, and Emeline lives with her daughter Bonnie Wallace in Cherryfield. It’s a very close-knit family who share the attitude, “she took care of us, now we’ll take care of her.”

Her grands and great-grands call her “a homemade Grammie” and she is famous for her cooking and handicrafts including, but not limited to, crocheting, sewing, embroidery, needlepoint and quilting. “I got the last baby blanket she made,” her great-grandson Samuel (16) boasted.

At the reception, praise for her Shredded Wheat Muffins and Blueberry Cake were on many lips and her cooking skills still in evidence. “There’s a cheese ball I made right over there,” she said, referring to the centerpiece of the reception buffet and she is always willing to share her recipes. “She’s never cooked from a box,” claims her granddaughter Mary Northrop.

“She still loves to pick cranberries and blueberries and help in the garden,” says her granddaughter, Roberta Willey. “She taught me how to drive when she was 71. At Whiting Corner, she just got out and said, ‘here you go.’” Emeline was driving until she was over ninety and still drives within a twenty-five mile radius of home on a restricted license - “no night driving.”

She has lived through nearly a century of amazing change and suggests that perhaps electricity and automobiles have had the greatest impact on the way we live. “We got our first TV in 1957 and it was great entertainment in the old days. I haven’t been watching much lately because my eyes aren’t so good,” but she still enjoys watching the “The Price Is Right,” “Jeopardy,” “Wheel Of Fortune,” and especially “The Young and The Restless.”

Her “daughter” Shelley Cleaves sums up everyone’s feelings perfectly, saying of her surrogate mom, “She’s just a dear woman.”

As A Man Thinketh

2011-03-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

"All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thought."

So begins my favorite James Allen's essay, "The Thought-Factor in Achievement," one of seven essays that make up his most successful publication, As A Man Thinketh. Regardless of the clarity and practical value of this collection of essays, it and its author remain obscure. Considering the fact that in our modern world "success" by any of its myriad definitions is sought with such passion and that communication is instantaneous and ubiqutious, it's hard to understand why his name and words are not on more lips.

Over thirty years ago, my then husband and I, wanting very badly to succeed as Amway Distributors, purchased a self-help leadership development series called "Lead the Field" by Earl Nightingale. As a bonus, we also received two tapes of Earl Nightingale reading As A Man Thinketh that served as our introduction to this late 19th century writer. I can't tell you what ever happened to all that "Lead the Field" material, but I wore out those two bonus tapes and have kept a copy of As A Man Thinketh at my bedside all the years since. It has influenced my thinking more than any other thing - animal, vegetable, or mineral. I would gladly give any taker all the books that fill the six-plus foot self-improvement section in our library, but I wouldn't sell my copy of As A Man Thinketh.

And I know what you thinketh right about now, too. Surely it's something like, well if that book is so wonderful, why isn't MsMOMA the richest, most famous, most accomplished, all round most everything person in the world if she's been reading it over and over every year for thirty-plus years? I can tell you why. Reading it, even over and over, isn't enough. Believing it, even deeply and completely, isn't enough. The truths he illuminates must be applied, practised consistently.

The answer is in the first line of the essay "Thought and Purpose." "Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to "drift" upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice..." She who has no purpose, gets no where. That's the message and the answer to the question and describes me pretty perfectly. My only purpose in life has been to enjoy it and be happy. In this I have succeeded. Now I am confronted by the question, is this enough?

The most important thing I learned from James Allen, and have internalized like I thought of it myself, is that we choose our thoughts and thereby our circumstances. If my thoughts produce congenial circumstances, I just keep thinking the same thoughts. If I want to change my circumstances, I change my thinking. The passion behind my thoughts determines the speed with which my thoughts out-picture in my environment. It is very empowering to know that I can, to a great extent, control my circumstances. While there may be other forces at work in the universe that contribute to my destiny, and there are many theories on this point, at the very least perhaps I should control the things I can control, and that would be what thoughts I encourage.

Like everything else, this is easier said than done. I seem to need constant reminding that I must focus on some goal if I want to avoid drifting about on the sea of life and never arrive at any destination. Continuing the nautical metaphor, I must be comfortable drifting because no particular port of call has ever beckoned persuasively enough that I'm willing to break out the oars and put my back into rowing hard enough to get there.

About this aimlessness James says, "Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose, should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished."

I find this, like everything else in the world, very interesting indeed. And therein lies the dilemma.

Cobbling an Education

2010-03-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

Since it doesn't appear that I'm ever going to go anywhere in the flesh in this lifetime, I've been getting my thrills vicariously. Since starting my travels with Rita Golden Gelman, I have lived in Canada with Marsha Boulton, on an olive farm in the south of France with Carole Drinkwater, and explored Africa with Mary Kingsley. Frances Mayes took me to Tuscany and I went with Elizabeth Gilbert to Italy, India and Indonesia. I've been to the Siberian Arctic and Nazi-occupied Poland. I've walked across America, twice, and been Around the World on the QE2. I recently traveled through the early 20th-century Middle East with Freya Stark. She and I have many more trips planned, but for the moment, I'm traveling with Alice Steinbach.

I met Alice, a Pulitizer Prize winning feature writer/reporter for the Baltimore Sun, when she decided to take a hiatus from her job at the newpaper and spread her wings a bit. Without Reservations is the book that tells that tale. To make a long story short, she liked her new life so well she decided to make a career out of traveling about, seeing the sights, and learning all sorts of new things. She writes about this development in Educating Alice - Adventures of a Curious Woman. She chose to learn cooking in Paris and dancing in Kyoto; she studied architecture in Florence, Italy, and Jane Austen in Winchester, England. An educational tour to Havana provided insights into the lives of modern Cubans. She saw "secret" gardens in Provence, took a writing course in Prague, and topped it all off by learning to train sheep dogs in Scotland. I found her "courses" very interesting, but given the world and all possible subjects to choose from, her choices would definitely not be my choices. "One man's meat...," etc.

I've observed that many editions of modern books are designed to be used by "reading groups" and are equiped in the back with "Questions for Discussion." These are often illuminating and now that I've set the stage, I'll explain where I'm heading with all this. One of the questions in Educating Alice is: "After much deliberation, Steinbach chose the subjects she would study and the places where she would learn about them. If you had to make a comparable list of half a dozen subjects and locations for your journey, what would they be?"

I read this question and pondered it briefly and couldn't, at first, come up with anything I wanted to learn badly enough to uproot myself from my comfy nest and wander half-way around the world to study. There's also the nagging question of financing such ventures. However... the more I thought about it, the more I realized there are certain things I would like to know more about and one doesn't necessarily have to go to the ends of the earth to find knowledge. One can get a feel for this self-education business by exploring the possibilities in one's own backyard. Well, I am nothing if not an autodidact, and this idea really appeals to me. So, I started making a list of the subjects I might like to know more about and where this search might necessarily take me. I am now on Page 2. Once started, I had to consciously STOP! listing "interesting places to go and things to learn."

At the top of my list is quilting. Some of my best friends are quilters and I've been collecting fabric for eight years. Perhaps it's time to discipline myself by taking a course or going off on a weekend quilting retreat and actually making something; hell, a potholder would do for a start. My daughter, Solveig, did a retreat caper a few years back and came home with a quilt top. Of course, I could always spend the weekend with my friend, Claire, and get the same result. I'm sure I'd learn just as much and the food would probably be better. Or I could just stay at home and work out of one of the many instructional books already in my possession. But the idea is to organize an actual program around the learning experience and meet some new people while one is at it. By including a trip to Center Harbor, New Hampshire, to the Keepsake Quilting store, I could make it into the equivalent of a study course and round it out with some mind-broadening exposure. I once met a most interesting woman in Center Harbor, NH. It's just an idea that will have to incubate for a spell before it hatches into a plan.

Another subject I'm interested in learning more about is herbalism and holistic medicine. I'm sure there are courses of study available in these subjects that would meet my requirements. Then there is Feng Shui training. That would be fun. I'd like to renew my acquaintance with Washington D.C. at cherry blossom time, explore Cape May, NJ, and visit Savannah, GA. The redwoods of California are on my list of things to see before I croak, along with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. I'd also like to visit Boy's Town and follow Route 66 from one end to the other.

We're planning to begin this educational quest by exploring Portland, ME, in early May. There we will learn all about the political party convention process, explore the Victoria Mansion and the country's first lighthouse, and ride a narrow gauge railroad train along Casco Bay. I'm also looking forward to exploring the bakeries and eateries for which Portland is becoming nationally known. In my view, a well-rounded excursion should always include something to do, something to see, and lots of good things to eat.

What would really be fascinating to learn is what is on other people's lists and why. I think this is a brilliant discussion question.

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T06:58:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras always strikes me as the kind of event one should spend in New Orleans at least once in a lifetime. This year will be an especially fine festival I'm thinking, what with the Saints winning the Super Bowl on top of the usual causes for celebration. I've given some thought to making King Cake, Mardi Gras' best-loved dessert, to mark the occasion, but the very idea of working with yeast intimidates me. I also gave thought this Sunday past to again making Fortune Cookies for Chinese New Year, but that one got away from me, too. (Besides the fun of chosing those cool blurbs to put inside, fortune cookies are no harder to make than brownies.)

If I were keeping track, I would observe that a whole lot of things I consider doing get away from me. I've always been better at thinking of potential activities than I have been at actually initiating motion in a particular direction. When I was a much younger woman dating a lovely young college student with limited funds, we would sit in the living room of his parent's home with his sister (my best friend) and her beau (also penniless) and "have ideas" for amusements. I do not think it immodest to say that I was a superb player. Many of our ideas were absurd and/or foolish and came to nothing besides paroxysms of laughter, a desirable end in itself. A lengthy session of "having ideas" followed by a trip to the Dairy Queen - that was a date. It's amazing how stimulating moneylessness can be when the desire to carry on in spite of it is strong. One becomes very creative.

I make a distinction between being broke and being impoverished. Having no cash to blow is usually seen by the affected party as a temporary condition. Poverty on the other hand connotes a state of mind as well as a zero bank balance - having needs, but no money and no hope of getting any. Even I, with all my positive thinking, can find nothing desirable in that.

Needing money, on the other hand, can be a strong motivation for creativity. Tasha Tudor comes immediately to mind as an example. She became a very successful illustrator and children's book author only because, she says, as a single mom she was responsible to keep the wolf from the door. She only later became a lifestyle icon because she had made enough money to live as she pleased and the public found her "primitive" lifestyle engaging.

Another good example might be the Impressionist artist Claude Monet. We've just finished watching a great BBC mini-series about the Impressionists (Netflix) in which he is depicted as being absolutely compelled to paint for both artistic and financial reasons. One wonders if he would have had such a prodigious output if he didn't need the money. Ditto Cezanne. Manet, Degas, and Renoir all had money and although they painted a lot, I don't think they're in the same league as Monet and Cezanne productionwise. Very interesting group, the Impressionists.

I've read many writers who aren't afraid to admit that they wrote for the money first and foremost. Of course, artistic satisfaction and having something to say are part of the mix, but I'm thinking it's the need to support themselves that kept, and continues to keep, 99.9% of them at the typewriter/keyboard/whatever. I'm an exception, of course. I have no idea why I write, but it's obviously not for the money.

Now there's a question I can "have ideas" about. Let's see; it certainly can't be said that I write because I have anything important to say. I'm very careful not to say anything important. So, do I write because of some deep-seated, subconscious need to be heard? Or perhaps because, for some obscure reason,others claim to derive enjoyment from it? Most likely, it's just for the pure selfish pleasure of pushing words around and hearing the music they make when they bump up against one another.

MsMOMA in Maine

2010-02-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

Hello there,
Years ago, my forward thinking and computer savvy sister-in-law, Judy, suggested that I should morph my little e-mail newsletter, The Narraguagus News, into a blog. "A what?," asked I. Being Internet illiterate and resistant to change, I waited until everyone else on the planet had jumped on the blogging wagon before beginning one of my own. Today I am feeling brave, so I am setting up this blog from whence I can broadcast my twaddle to the world.

Like the Narraguagus News, MsMOMA in Maine will be all about nothing...at least nothing of consequence. Here you will hear all about the doings, or un-doings, of Himself and MsMOMA, an aging couple from New Jersey who, against all advice and common sense, moved to Maine in 2002 and took up residence in a 1840's house in the village of Cherryfield, nine hours from their nearest friend and/or relative. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

My daughter, Ms Solveig, was our first visitor. She expressed some interest in our home improvement efforts and our integration into our new community as well as some concerns for the soundness of our minds. The Narraguagus News, a quasi-daily e-mail blurb, was born as a vehicle to keep her informed of our progress on all fronts and to reassure her of our well-being. In an effort to treat all our children fairly and equally, I soon began sending the NN to the other four. Then some of our friends expressed an interest, then some of their friends, et cetera, until now the NN goes to almost a hundred persons in various parts of the world. Who would have thunk it?

Although it's nice to think that the NN contributes to our children's peace of mind, my greatest reward from composing these bulletins has been the responses I've received from readers. I'm thinking this blogging format will encourage more of that, thus increasing my pleasure, which is always my primary concern.

Now I must get on with setting this space up for your viewing pleasure, then I'm off to write the last of the regular e-mail NNs and let you know where to find me from now on.